Friday Meanderings: Writing Examples, Beyond the Ivory Tower, Hot Yoga, and Mirror Life
Back in the saddle again. I’m still experimenting with the things that might make this newsletter valuable for readers. I’d love to hear more from all of you on what kinds of writing you enjoy the most, what you want to read, and ways that I might be able to bring a little more brightness into your life. For now, I’m still going to share these Friday Meanderings, since they’re a fun way for me to explore some ideas and share various opportunities that might be of value for some of you (like the Beyond the Ivory Tower workshop I’m sharing below in the Career Corner).
Journeys
My course on astrobiology for Atlas Obscura is nearly concluded. The course, Cosmic Life: Astrobiology & the Search for Extraterrestrial Life With Dr. Graham Lau, has really been a blast to share. While there are no immediate plans for another version, something I can share is that we have a long-awaited online course on astrobiology that we hope to soon offer through Sciworthy, SAGANet, and BMSIS. The course will be launched on the Sciworthy Thinkific page, where we already have courses on scientific writing and ethics.
I’m rather excited to finally be back at home and in my office for a good long stretch of time. I’ll have some trips next year to Mexico, India, New Zealand, and more, but for now I’m excited to get back into a regular schedule.
Due to a recent bicep injury, I’ve cut back on lifting (again) for a bit, but have been getting in some regular hot yoga sessions. If you haven’t tried it before, hot yoga is a style of bodily yoga exercise practiced in a heated room with high humidity. It combines traditional yoga poses with the physical and mental challenge of enduring high temperatures and lots of sweat. It can be a bit much for some people who haven’t experienced such high temperatures and humidity before (some schools offer slightly less hot versions which are great for beginners!). I really love exploring the physical and mental experiences that come up during a good hot class!
Career Corner - Let’s Help Each Other!
A friend of mine is looking to expand her career options back into the realm of science communication. I suggested that she check out joining some scicomm professional groups, like the Scicommers, The League of Science Communicators, The Association of Science Communicators, and the Astrobiology SciComm Guild. But if you have any leads on scicomm jobs, especially in the Colorado Front Range area or remotely, please let me know!
Beyond the Ivory Tower is a science writing workshop supported by the Templeton Foundation and hosted at Northeastern University. I took part in the workshop last year and it was a phenomenal opportunity to not only workshop my writing ideas and meet other scholar-writers. If you have a doctorate and want to explore ways to write about your ideas for others, then check out the application for the next session of the workshop.
Feel free to reach out if you’re looking for a job or know a position that other readers here might want to apply to! We can lift each other up by helping each other find the roles and pathways that will open up our futures together.
Writing Examples
I took part some time back in a wonderful writing workshop called Write of Passage, which focused on developing online writing skills. While the workshop is sadly no longer available, its creator, David Perell (who is also a fantastic writer), has a new endeavor that I’ve been grooving on lately called Writing Examples. The email newsletter for the site send fairly regular pieces that explore some of the best examples of writing from history. Check out the writing from Herman Melville below for an example of how to write about the sea:
If you like clear and concise explorations of what makes great writing so great, then I can highly recommend subscribing to them for more!
Mirror Life: Balancing Caution with Scientific Nuance
The recent call from an international group of scientists and Nobel laureates to halt research on creating mirror life—microorganisms built from mirror-image molecules—has sparked some significant and interesting debate online.
Their argument is grounded in the concern that such organisms could pose "unprecedented risks" to life on Earth. Among their concerns is the potential for mirror microbes to evade natural immune defenses and spread unchecked, with antibiotics potentially rendered ineffective against such synthetic organisms. While these are valid and pressing concerns, it is crucial to balance this caution with a nuanced understanding of the science involved, particularly regarding the canonical claim that all life as we know it is homochiral (which is the first sentence of their paper).
Homochirality refers to the molecular handedness of life on Earth—DNA and RNA are composed of right-handed sugars, while proteins are made from left-handed amino acids. This symmetry, often portrayed as universal for life as we know it, forms a cornerstone of the argument for why mirror life would be incompatible with and potentially uncontrollable within natural ecosystems. However, research over the past decades has demonstrated that life is more chemically diverse than this binary view suggests. Certain organisms can utilize right-handed amino acids and left-handed sugars, challenging the assertion that homochirality is a strict and universal rule.
For example, a fantastic review by David Avnir reveals a growing body of evidence of exceptions where life leverages molecules with atypical handedness for specific biochemical purposes. These exceptions, while rare, indicate that life’s relationship with chirality is not as absolute as commonly presented. In fact, the suggestion that “all life is homochiral” should now be viewed as being incorrect. Life as we know it certainly has strong and clear enantiomeric excesses, but given that there are many exceptions to the concept of homochirality, we can’t clearly state how a “mirror” handedness organism might interact with living things on Earth.
Recognizing this complexity does not negate the potential risks of mirror life but highlights the importance of grounding such discussions in accurate scientific understanding.
The concerns raised in the recent Science article are valid and commendable in their aim to foster global dialogue and responsible innovation. Engineering mirror organisms, even under highly controlled conditions, could result in unintended consequences that challenge containment and mitigation strategies. For example, biocontainment measures might fail, and natural competitors or predators could prove ineffective against mirror microbes.
However, as with any emerging technology, the risks must be weighed against potential benefits. Mirror molecules have already shown promise in medical applications, such as therapies for chronic diseases, and in industrial processes, where they could improve the efficiency of chemical production. The focus on halting research entirely, rather than pursuing rigorous risk assessments and regulated pathways for responsible development, may inadvertently stifle advancements that could benefit humanity (just playing the “devil’s advocate” here). I don’t think we necessarily should stop forward developments in science and engineering, but I do think we’re moving so fast these days that it is far harder to have any clear and reasonable consideration of potential issues before they arise. Much like with the call for putting a short-term pause on furthering AI developments that I signed off on sometime back, in the case of mirror life it could make sense to halt further developments until experts and researchers in synthetic biology can better assess the potential threats.
This call to “pause” mirror life research also presents an opportunity to reflect on the broader implications of synthetic biology and our responsibilities as stewards and members of the biosphere. While exercising caution is wise and I hope the call from this group of researchers is considered (even if some of their claims are wrong), we certainly must ensure our decisions are informed by a nuanced understanding of life’s diversity and the possibilities—both promising and perilous—that science holds.
Thanks so much to everyone our there who’s reading The Cosmobiologist.
If you want to share on any of my journeys, meet up for a coffee in person someday, chat about the topics I share about, or just talk about anything and everything, feel free to reach out! I’d also love to know what kinds of things you’d like to see in my newsletter as it continues to evolve and grow.